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Saturday

A non-musician friend just sent me a clip, asking if I knew about this contraption. But I sure hadn't run into the Jasperbridge Percussion Guitar until now. That's the inventor, Tom Shaper, playing it in the video. He hopes other musicians will come up with more creative approaches for this instrument. Me too.

Okay, but I'm really tryin' to be kind here, cuz it's so easy to write this off as nerdy-- how 'bout ultra-nerdy! I mean, plenty of guitar players have been slapping & tapping conventional guitars already. We play with our teeth, behind our back, between our legs, with a bow, we set 'em on fire, smash 'em up-- so, is the Jasperbridge really necessary at this point? Who's to say?

At least it's not another new "clever" military weapon some big corp. will sell the government for $100K each at tax payer expense. Although Mr. Shaper's day job could very well be in the defense industry... Millions do work in the military industrial complex.

An interesting point however- and probably why this thing is new to me - is that Shaper is promoting to artists instead of to the gear industry. In other words, he was at the recent SXSW in Austin, but doesn't do NAMM.

Hey, maybe someone will build a piano you can pluck... Oh yeah, that would be the harp; one of the earliest musical instruments known to man.

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